Sermon given at Sung Eucharist and Presentation of The Reverend Canon Andrew Tremlett as Rector, St Margaret's Church Sunday 10 October 2010

10th October 2010 at 11:00 am

The Reverend Andrew Tremlett, Rector of St Margaret's

The heart of a pastor
A concern for those on the edges
Christ in our midst

Arriving in my new parish of St Mary’s Goring-by-Sea in West Sussex in May of 2003, one of my first duties was to attend the funeral of one of my illustrious predecessors from the 1950’s, Canon Peter Bide.

Peter’s arrival in Goring had not been auspicious. He had been a hospital chaplain working in Oxford, where one of the patients was an American woman seriously ill with bone cancer. Married to an academic and writer, in a civil court because she was a divorcee, as a result of Peter’s ministry the woman in question then requested a religious wedding which was conducted at her bedside in 1957. This was against the wishes of the then Bishop of Oxford, who withdrew Peter’s licence, and hence he landed up in the Diocese of Chichester under the wing of Bishop George Bell.

And, of course, if you haven’t guessed already, the couple in question were Joy Davidman Gresham and the great C S Lewis.

Nor did the tale end there. At his funeral, the story was told of Peter’s return to Oxford, where he became chaplain to Lady Margaret Hall, then a college for women. As an all-female establishment, there was a strict curfew from 9 o’clock in the evening by when all male guests had to be out of the college.

Working late and walking across the quad at 10 o’clock one evening, Peter was spotted from behind by one of the college porters, who shouted – ‘Oi, what are you doing here?’ When Peter turned around to reveal his dog-collar, the porter abjectly apologised – ‘Sorry, Sir, I thought you was a man!’

I recount these brief biographical details because they illustrate succinctly the life of a pastor, the place of compassionate rebellion when dealing with those on the edges, and the centrality of the incarnation, all of which feature in the gospel reading this morning from Luke ch 17. I want to explore these themes and then connect them to the life and ministry of St Margaret’s.

Writing in one of the Sunday broadsheets last weekend, Matthew d’Ancona wrote that “No minister of State can afford to forget that politics is not, and never has been, a branch of economics. Statecraft, as George F Will wrote, is soul-craft”.

You might equally say the same of any minister of religion, or for that matter, the ministry of any baptised Christian. Our meat and drink, the air we breathe, the space we inhabit should be and must be soul-craft.
• The nurture, care and building up of the spiritual life,
• which finds expression in art, literature and music,
• which breathes deeply into our liturgy, hymnology and spirituality;
• which enlivens the stones of our buildings and informs our intense debates about the political questions of the day.

This is soul-craft: acknowledging that our souls do not grow and mature by themselves, but rather need to be fed, watered, encouraged, stimulated, challenged and cherished.

In Jesus’ encounter with the ten suffering with leprosy, it is ultimately not enough that they should have courage to approach him – that was enough to ensure their healing. No, the further dimension was that this outward healing led to an inner change of heart – not in all, not in some, but just in the one who returned and gave praise to God: your faith has made you well.

Secondly, we have a very clear illustration here of Jesus treading all over the boundaries which had been set by human convention. On the way to the holy shrine of the Temple in Jerusalem, Luke tells us he travels through the region between Samaria and Galilee. Famously, this passage only appears in Luke and he gets the geography all wrong. The end of chapter 9 has Jesus leaving Galilee and entering Samaria, so if he is on his way to Jerusalem he must be way off course.

But that misses the point. The point is that we are talking about a no-man’s land, somewhere on the fringes, and much more importantly, people on the fringes.

One of my rather distant connections with Westminster was through Dr John Rae, formerly headmaster of the school, or more particularly his wife Daphne. Through the Laura Ashley foundation in the 1980s she supported the work of the Brothers of Charity, working with leprosy sufferers in rural India.

As an undergraduate, it was through this connection that I spent a couple of months living on the no-man’s land between India and Nepal, where a leprosy hospital had been established. A Roman Catholic priest, himself a doctor, had moved from Calcutta where he worked with Mother Teresa, and established the centre as a place of healing and refuge for those who were outcast and pushed to the fringes. Such was his identification with those he cared for that he contracted the disease himself.

And finally, the centrality of the incarnation. My friends from Bristol will realise that one of the bridges I have wanted to make between the ending of our time there, and the beginning here in Westminster has been through the choice of music this morning. In particular, I have asked in both services for the beautiful motet, Magnum Mysterium, by the American composer Morten Lauridsen. The words are taken from a responsorial chant for Matins at Christmas.

O magnum mysterium/ et admirabile sacramentum,
ut animalia viderent Dominum natum,/
jacentem in præsepio.

O great mystery/ and wondrous sacrament,
that animals should see the newborn Lord
lying in their manger.

These words reaffirm for us both the centrality of the Incarnation in the Christian faith, and also the ineffable mystery, the glory which goes beyond words, the heaven we only glimpse briefly.

In Christ Jesus, we see God incarnate, the divine made flesh, God walking among us. A God who is not only merciful and compassionate, but does so from within our human experience. Who knows what it is to love, to cry, to feel hunger, to have friends and companions, to be a beloved son, to experience humanity.

‘Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!’ This is not the cry of a believer into the heavens, a shout God-ward, or an exclamation into the ether. This is a plea for mercy from those who are outcast to one who will himself know what it is to suffer.

But within the wonder of the Incarnation is also wrapped the mystery: it is not enough just to say that God is human, as if the Incarnation meant that God was defined by our humanity. Experiencing the love of God in Jesus gives us a foretaste of our life in God, and we should be those whose lives open up that mystery, lift the corner of the tapestry, bid others to come and enter in.

The heart of a pastor
A concern for those on the edges
Christ in our midst

If I were asked what my vision and aspiration would be for any Christian community – and especially for St Margaret’s – these three would come very near the top of the list. Because they speak of the quality of our relationships, the depth of our concern, and our central ambition not merely to preach Christ among us but to live out our common life in such a way that Christ becomes a visible reality in our midst.

Then he said to him, ‘Get up and go on your way; your faith has saved you.’